Monday, March 8, 2010
Media / Politics / News Bites / Clout City / News Publisher Jim Warren Is Leaving the Chicago Reader
Posted by Michael Miner on 03.08.10 at 12:27 PM
Jim Warren told this paper's staff Monday morning that he's resigning as publisher of the Reader. He said he's "taking on enhanced duties with the Chicago News Cooperative and pursuing other intriguing journalism opportunities."
Warren, a former managing editor of the Tribune, was named publisher last October by Richard Gilbert, who at the time was interim CEO of Creative Loafing, the company running the Reader for its new owner, Atalaya Capital Management. Gilbert soon was succeeded by Marty Petty, former publisher of the St. Petersburg Times.
Warren's career at the Tribune — as Tempo editor, Washington editor, and features editor — did less to persuade this paper's staff to welcome him than to look a little sideways at him, wondering whether he regarded the Reader as a place to land after he left the Tribune in the general turmoil of the takeover by Sam Zell. It didn't help matters that Warren had been nominated for his Reader post by Jim O'Shea, a former Tribune managing editor serving on Gilbert's board, and that when O'Shea launched his Web-based Chicago News Cooperative, whose main job is producing four pages a week in the New York Times, Warren was a twice-weekly contributor.
The interim publisher will be Alison Draper, a former publisher of the Dallas Observer whom Petty recently named vice president and chief sales officer of the Creative Loafing papers.
In a gracious announcement to this paper's staff, Warren noted that he'd been hired before Petty was, and that the CEO should have the opportunity to name her own publisher. "The paper needs a corporate team working in lockstep," Warren allowed, and went on to say that his brief stay at the Reader "underscored that a very elusive commodity is found in abundance" at this paper, "an underlying passion among the editorial and sales staff both for what they do and for Chicago." In today's media world, "for only a dwindling minority is their daily labor a calling," Warren went on, putting his finger, at this moment, squarely on the Reader's sense of itself.
Comments (15)
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Here's to Jim Warren, the Sarah Palin of the Reader. He was there barely long enough for the ink on his business cards to dry out.
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So, what really happened? This is so NOT a complete picture. It's not like Warren was a lower-level employee whose privacy is reasonably superior to a public accounting for what he did and failed to do. When he undermined all the Reader reporters to write his "Chicago Corruption Ain't So Bad" piece for the NYT-CNC, it sent a strong message, but without more reporting we can't tell if he got stung at the Reader or is consolidating his power to be an apologist for corruption over at CNC. Please don't let this be the end of the Reader's reporting on James Warren.
"In today's media world, 'for only a dwindling minority is their daily labor a calling?'" Says fucking who? If it's not a calling, why do we stick around? For the pay? The stability? The perks? I realize he was just trying to pay his staff a compliment on the way out the door, but if he really believes this, he doesn't deserve to have a job in the business.
"pursuing other intriguing journalism opportunities"
Scrap metal prices are up!
http://www.kitcometals.com/charts/Aluminum…
LGScribe, it was a backhanded compliment if anything, to the effect that you idealists will have to sell out to the big corporate interests if you ever want to make the big bucks in journalism. Not sure he's right about that, but I am sure that was what he said.
Following up on Thomas Westgard's comment, one should also note another former Trib guy, Evan Osnos, writing rather glowingly about Daley in The New Yorker. Warren's piece seemed to be an effort at deflecting growing suspicions that Obama, because of an administration larded up with Chicagoans, is just another scheming, rudderless Illinois pol. Osnos' article is more balanced in that regard, I think. But I'd like to hear what others think.
As for Warren, the man is a bit too precious for my taste. Sort of a business-class Maureen Dowd these days. Though I did find entertaining and enlightening his mini-rants against the many obvious and otherwise unreported conflicts of interest among Washington journos when he was a bureau chief there. Too bad, then, that the Tribune suddenly needed him back in Chicago for an urgent spell of career hibernation as co-managing editor.
The consensus over on Windy Citizen is that this doesn't make a lot of sense: http://www.windycitizen.com/chicago/media/…
What never made sense was the appointment/hire itself. A publisher is a business position and a leader of ad sales and marketing. It's also a full-time-plus job, not one that allows for doing two (!) columns a week for another (and competing) publication. So O'Shea got him the Ayala/Reader job as a place to land and another as his CNC columnist and now he'll be doing more for O'Shea at CNC as well as cashing in other places as he knows how to do. And he stayed/returned as a Pulitzer juror for 2010, too. No tears or confusion required.
perhaps it's the second city becoming the third...or perhaps fourth. sad tawdry place.
Is it possible that a dog named Toto wandered into the Reader, discovered a curtained room away from the master's throne and revealed him to be just another huckster from Kansas ... or was it Chicago? Before catching the next hot-air balloon leaving the depot, the great-and-powerful Wizard of Oz bestowed medals, diplomas and other placebos on loyal employees in the office.
Too bad the flying monkeys couldn't find Jim O'Shea -- who probably was too busy granting interviews to dazzled reporters from faraway lands -- and drag his ass back to the Wicked Witch of the Midwest's castle.
I hope the new publisher clears this board of nasty little trolls like Curious (Oreo). Eliminating him would instantly raise the average board IQ by 50 points.
Yes, The New Yorker was pretty soft on Daley, letting the reader agree with the mayor that his corruption will ultimately be outweighed by all the civic good he has done. It is a Catholic school boy's view of sin, and all in all, if you balance the ledger, a fairly easy way to get into Heaven.
